Xbox One to Release Nov. 22, CPU gets an Update

Microsoft has officially announced that the Xbox One will launch in 13 markets on November 22nd. For you war veterans out there, that means that the Xbox One will launch one week after the US release of the PlayStation 4 and one week before the European launch of the PlayStation 4.

“We’re now in a position to share that Xbox One will be available on November 22, 2013 in all 13 of our initial launch markets – Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, UK, and USA. Many more markets will follow in 2014,” revealed Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s Vice President of marketing, strategy and business. The date coincides with the original launch of the Xbox 360, just eight short years ago. The console is getting yet another hardware upgrade as well.

Aside from the earlier announcement that the Xbox One’s GPU clock speed would be increased from 800MHz to 853MHz, the unit’s CPU is also getting an upgrade: from 1.6MHz to 1.75MHz. Microsoft has also announced that the console is in full production in time for the November 22nd launch, one the company believes will be its largest ever.

“We are humbled and gratified by the tremendous interest in Xbox One from game fans everywhere. We sold out of our pre-order supply faster than at any other time in our history and we are on path to have the biggest launch of an Xbox ever. We look forward to celebrating with millions and millions of gamers this holiday,” Mehdi added.

The Xbox One will launch at a price point of $499 USD and will come packaged with a single controller, a Kinect 2.0 sensor, an HDMI cable and a wired headset microphone.